On the Naming of Names
by cofax
Summary: Season 2 character study. Rygel was still the Dominar, but Aeryn was rarely Officer Sun anymore. Crichton clung to Commander as if it would bring him home.


Title: On the Naming of Names   
Author: cofax   
Email: cofax@mindspring.com   
Rating: G   
Spoilers: set sometime in S2, vague spoilers for TWWW   
Summary: what's in a name?   
Disclaimer: not mine, fair use, blah blah fishcakes  
  
  
  
***  
  
On the Naming of Names   
by cofax   
April 2002  
  
  
  
He knew, now that it was too late for anything to be done, that the Elders had been right all along. He had been too young: too immature, and woefully underprepared.  
  
Unprepared for the pain, most certainly -- but then that was an anomaly, and he had been warned. But even less prepared for the entire mind-rattling *strangeness* of it all. To never again know the taste of greenfly paste in the morning; to be freed of the need for sleep, bobbing on the swells with his hatchmates; to see a hundred frequencies of starlight through Moya's myriad eyes; to have the constant tickle of DRD input channeled into his consciousness. To go for monens without another's touch on his skin. Moya was a constant joy, a warmth in the dark between the stars, but she had barely any language, and what she had was as simple as his was layered.  
  
He often wished he had another pilot to speak with, to advise him. There were sometimes whispers in Moya's databanks, echoes of a strange familiarity in her mind. He would grasp after them -- but retaining them was like closing his claws around the sound of Chiana's voice, or the color of Zhaan's robes. They always slipped away.  
  
Was it any surprise he eavesdropped? Mostly it was just the sound of the crew's voices -- what they had to say was usually as simple as the babble of the newly-hatched.   
  
But their voices, twining together, built an unseen structure, an almost physical series of connections knotted together through Moya's corridors. It grew ever stronger with every adversity survived, every challenge met. A net to catch each other with, the way his hatchmates had netted gilbot in the spring.  
  
  
  
"Frell that! You can't keep me here!"  
  
"Did you not *hear* the man, Pip? They hate Nebari here. You'd be arrested before you got two steps off the pod!"  
  
"D'Argo -- !"  
  
"Chiana, John is right. Next time --"  
  
  
  
*Pip*. He'd heard Commander Crichton call her that many times. It was not her name, but when the Commander used it, she responded.  
  
They had so many names. Aeryn, Big D, Blue, Sunshine, Commander, Eminence, Pip, Buckwheat, Officer Sun, Pa'u, thatsonofabitch Crais -- usage changed with the circumstances, the status of the relationship between the speakers, the needs of the moment.  
  
He set a portion of his mind to track and analyze naming conventions; the rest of his mind calculated the vectors necessary to bring them into geosynchronous orbit above the commerce planet, directed three DRDs to clear out the access hatchways near Dominar Rygel's quarters (Rygel's penchant for hoarding food had more than once caused problems for the maintenance DRDs), brought down the temperature in the living quarters by one degree, and supervised a DRD making repairs to one of the hammand-side gravity bladders.  
  
  
  
"Sparky! How many times have I *told* you -- "  
  
"I don't have to listen to you. I am a Dominar -- "  
  
"Six hundred billion, already, fine, Buckwheat. But that does *not* give you the right to go into my room and take my stuff! It's. My. Stuff."  
  
"Crichton, why do you bother? Rygel would steal from a gelded zamnok if it had something he wanted."  
  
"Easy for you to say, Sunshine. See how you like it when he starts stealing *your* underwear."  
  
  
  
Names were codes, he realized, indicating status, family, connections, hopes for the future, memories of the past. What they called each other, what they called themselves, showed who they were. Rygel was still the Dominar, but Aeryn was rarely Officer Sun anymore. Crichton clung to Commander as if it would bring him home.  
  
Not one of their passengers had ever called him anything but Pilot.   
  
And in almost two cycles of journeys, through blood and fire and desperation, none of them had ever asked him his name.  
  
  
  
***  
  
END  
  
Notes: title by Ursula K. Leguin. Beta by Fialka and KodiakkeMax: my thanks to you both.  
  
alchemy mouldiwarps and coprophagy: http://mouldiwarps.shriftweb.org/ 


End file.
